1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an appliance control apparatus which is held in a hand of a user or fastened to a body of the user to manipulate an apparatus in accordance with a directly-sensed motion.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, since a remote controller is dedicated to each of a plurality of apparatuses, there are a plurality of the remote controllers in a room. In this case, one of the apparatuses is manipulated with the corresponding remote controller which is held in the hand. Often, the controller may be misplaced. Further, a problem arises because there are many remote controllers in the room. In order to solve the problem, a multi-remote controller for manipulating a plurality of the apparatuses has been proposed. In the multi-remote controller, a button for selecting the manipulated-object apparatuses, manipulation buttons for the manipulated-object apparatus, and common manipulation buttons are customized, and the manipulation is performed. Although a plurality of the apparatuses can be manipulated with a single remote controller, the number of buttons on the remote controller increases, and there is needed for a plurality of button manipulations for performing a desired manipulation (see Japanese Patent Application Kokai No 2003-78779).
Other techniques which employ a user gesture for the manipulation have been proposed. For example, a method of analyzing the gesture by picking up the gesture with a camera and performing image processing has been frequently used (see Japanese Patent Application Kokai No. 11-327753). However, in such a method, the user must be always traced with camera, or the user must make a gesture in front of the camera. Therefore, the method has many limitations for use in a general room.
On the other hand, as a method of controlling a plurality of apparatuses without the aforementioned limitations, there is known a method for directly sensing a motion of a body by using an acceleration sensor which is fastened on the body (see Japanese Patent Application Kokai No. 2000-132305).